CHAP.X "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 113 



Stephen's type. "Idiot yourself," the bad man 

 might say, with great force. For indeed there is 

 nothing so incommunicable and purely personal as 

 mere pleasure or mere pain. And moral sympathy, 

 which makes us partners with one another in all 

 things, is very far removed from automatic prompt- 

 ings or illusions as to the limits of personality ; it 

 does not fall below clear thought, but includes it 

 and goes beyond it. Love is a relation of person 

 to person, and the keen pang of love is not due to 

 any vague apprehension, " What ! there is suffering 

 about, is there?" but to the dreadful consciousness, 

 " He is in pain ! Precisely he ! Not I, but he ! 

 That is the maddening thought ! " Yes, and there 

 too lies the ennobling experience. 



The further question, " Why should I yield ? why 

 care for others ? " receives the answer, " Generally 

 in the long run it pays in pleasure to oneself to do 

 so ; but sometimes, we must admit in unfortunate 

 cases, or where there is too lavish generosity self- 

 sacrifice means a heavy nett loss." And with that 

 the science of ethics, as conceived and worked out 

 by Mr. Stephen, confesses itself bankrupt. The 

 point has come at which the question of the justi- 

 fication of the moral judgment can no longer be 

 thrust aside. Defined at first as social requirement, 

 duty is now tested from the point of view of the in- 

 dividual consciousness; when a gulf discloses itself 

 between the individual life and the social whole. 

 We live in an irrational world ; for our nature craves 

 and postulates happiness ; and, although sometimes 

 when we deserve it we get it, yet often we have to 

 do without. Better look facts in the face ! There 



